Glossary of blogging

This is a list of blogging terms. Blogging, like any hobby, has developed something of a specialised vocabulary. The following is an attempt to explain a few of the more common phrases and words, including etymologies when not obvious.

Blog-related terms

A

Atom

A popular feed format developed as an alternative to RSS.

Autocasting

Automated form of podcasting that allows bloggers and blog readers to generate audio versions of text blogs from RSS feeds.

Audioblog

A blog where the posts consist mainly of voice recordings sent by mobile phone, sometimes with some short text message added for metadata purposes. (cf. podcasting)

B

Blawg

A law blog.

Bleg

An entry in a blog requesting information or contributions. A portmanteau of "blog" and "beg". Also called "Lazyweb".

Blog Carnival

A blog article that contains links to other articles covering a specific topic. Most blog carnivals are hosted by a rotating list of frequent contributors to the carnival, and serve to both generate new posts by contributors and highlight new bloggers posting matter in that subject area.

Blog client

(weblog client) is software to manage (post, edit) blogs from operating system with no need to launch a web browser. A typical blog client has an editor, a spell-checker and a few more options that simplify content creation and editing.

Blog publishing service

A software which is used to create the blog. Some of the most popular are WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type and Joomla.

Blogger

Person who runs a blog. Also blogger.com, a popular blog hosting web site. Rarely: weblogger.

Blogirl

A female blogger

Bloggernacle

Blogs written by and for Mormons (a portmanteau of "blog" and "Tabernacle"). Generally refers to faithful Mormon bloggers and sometimes refers to a specific grouping of faithful Mormon bloggers.

Bloggies

One of the most popular blog awards.

Blogroll

A list of other blogs that a blogger might recommend by providing links to them (usually in a sidebar list).

Blogosphere

All blogs, or the blogging community.

Blogodynamic 

Dynamic with the genre and appearance of blogs

Blogware

A category of software which consists of a specialized form of a Content Management System specifically designed for creating and maintaining weblogs.

The BOBs

The largest international blog awards.

C

Catblogging (traditionally "Friday catblogging", sometime "Caturday")

The practice of posting pictures of cats, in typical cat postures and expressions, on a blog.

Collaborative blog

A blog (usually focused on a single issue or political stripe) on which multiple users enjoy posting permission. Also known as group blog.

Comment spam

Like e-mail spam. Robot “spambots” flood a blog with advertising in the form of bogus comments. A serious problem that requires bloggers and blog platforms to have tools to exclude some users or ban some addresses in comments.

D

Desktop Blogging Client

An off-line blog management (posting, editing and archiving) tool

F

Fisking

To rebut a blog entry in a line-by-line fashion.

Flog

A portmanteau of "fake" and "blog". A blog that's ghostwritten by someone, such as in the marketing department.

A food blog; sometimes, a blog dedicated to food porn.

Feeds

RSS Feeds.

H

Health blog

A blog that covers health topics, events and/or related content of the health industry and the general community. In short, anything related to health.

How-To blog

A blog that covers topics like blog creation, customization and promotion.Other topics that fall under this category are Tut Blogs, Mobile Tutorials.

J

J-blog

A journalist blog.

A blog with a Jewish focus.

L

Legal blog

A blog about law.

Lifelog

List Blog

A blog consisting solely of list style posts.

Litblog

A blog that focuses primarily on the topic of literature.

M

Milblog

Term for blogs written by members or veterans of any branch of military service - Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. A contraction of military and blog.

Moblog

A portmanteau of "mobile" and "blog". A blog featuring posts sent mainly by mobile phone, using SMS or MMS messages. They are often photoblogs.

Mommy blog

A blog featuring discussions especially about home and family.

Multiblog

A blog constructed as a conversation between more than two people.

P

Permalink

Permanent link. The unique URL of a single post. Use this when you want to link to a post somewhere.

Phlog

Type of blog utilising the Gopher protocol instead of HTTP

A Photoblog. A portmanteau of "photo" and "blog".

Photoblog

A blog mostly containing photos, posted constantly and chronologically.

Pingback

The alert in the TrackBack system that notifies the original poster of a blog post when someone else writes an entry concerning the original post.

Podcasting

Contraction of “iPod” and “broadcasting” (but not for iPods only). Posting audio and video material on a blog and its RSS feed, for digital players.

Post

An entry written and published to a blog.

Post Slug

For blogs with common language URLs, the post slug is the portion of the URL that represents the post. Example: http://domain.com/2008/01/this-is-the-post-slug

R

RSS

Really Simple Syndication is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts.

RSS aggregator

Software or online service allowing a blogger to read an RSS feed, especially the latest posts on their favourite blogs. Also called a reader, or feedreader.

RSS feed

The file containing a blog’s latest posts. It is read by an RSS aggregator/reader and shows at once when a blog has been updated. It may contain only the title of the post, the title plus the first few lines of a post, or the entire post.

S

Search engine friendly URLs

or, for short, SEF URLs, implemented via URL mapping.

Spam blog

A blog which is composed of spam. A Spam blog or "any blog whose creator doesn't add any written value."

Slashdot effect

The Slashdot effect can hit blogs or other website, and is caused by a major website (usually Slashdot, but also Digg, Metafilter, Boing Boing, Instapundit and others) sending huge amounts of temporary traffic that often slow down the server.

Subscribe

The term used when a blogs feed is added to a feed reader like Bloglines or Google. Some blogging platforms have internal subscriptions, this allows readers to receive notification when there are new posts in a blog. A subscriber is a person who is willing to receive blogger's news and updates.

smartibook

A blog featuring discussions especially about Education and Job .allow readers to submit education related guest post

T

Templates

Templates, used on the "back end" of a blog that work together to handle information and present it on a blog.

Theme

CSS based code that when applied to the templates will result in visual element changes to the blog. The theme, as a whole, is also referred to as a blog design.

TrackBack

A system that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a 'ping' between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.

V

Vlog

A video blog; a vlogger is a video blogger (e.g. someone who records himself interviewing people of a certain field).

W

Warblog

A blog devoted mostly or wholly to covering news events concerning an ongoing war.

Weblog

The unshortened version of 'blog'.